The Lateness Enigma
by dancingqueensillystring
Summary: Tsunade, sick of Kakashi's excuses for being late, sends her most trusted kunoichi, Sakura, to compile a list of his excuses so that Tsunade can take appropriate action to deal with his Lateness Enigma. Let the mission begin!


"Shishou?" Sakura said respectfully, "Are you sure this is an S-class mission?"

"Sakura," The current reigning Hokage said, "This is a mission of the upmost importance. You must take it seriously at all times and you must never reveal the goal of the mission to the subject. I give you full permission to go to any means necessary to complete your mission, Now go, and remember that I put my trust un your hands."

Tsunade tossed the scroll to Sakura who caught it with the relative ease that all shinobi have when dealing with incoming flying objects. She raised her hand in a mock salute to Tsunade and jumped out the window of the Hokage office, ready to begin her mission.

Sakura maneuvered her way through the familiar streets of Konaha, towards the training ground of her team. She arrived there to find herself late though Kakashi still had not arrived. She leaned up against the back of one of the familiar wooden stumps in the training grounds (the one Naruto was tied to so long ago, she would later realize), after tossing a hello to Naruto, and Sasuke, who was still not talkative, but improving on his antisocial tendencies.

As expected, they sat for several hours, Naruto joking and shoving, Sasuke snorting, snarling, and when he was feeling particularly social, sneering, and Sakura organizing her things in her bag and pulling out a small notebook with a pencil.

"What are you writing, Sakura-chan?" Called Naruto's perpetually bouncy self.

"Nothing Naruto, just preparing for a mission." At the word "mission" Naruto's ears perked up and he immediately began bombarding her with questions.

"Can I come?"

"What rank is it?"

"Are you going by your self?"

"Where are you going?"

"How long will you be gone?"

"When are you leaving?"

"What's the mission?"

After receiving a heavy (yet much more friendly glare than the kind he used to receive) glare from Sasuke, and a heavier punch from Sakura, Naruto finally closed his mouth and waited for her to tell them.

"Okay," Sakura said taking a breath, "When I begin speaking there will not be a word of protest, unless you want to find yourselves in the hospital permanently, replacing the fish as the practice for novice medic-nins."

Remembering the number of times Sakura had come to practice angry because another fish had died, and the fact that she was only one person, one exceptionally bright person, who undoubtedly killed less fish than most, they nodded their heads meekly in unison, very scared (as always) by Sakura's threats.

"Naruto, this is a solo mission, meaning there is no team, and you can not come with me. I am also not going to be leaving the village unless the subject has a mission, at which case I will be instructed to follow the subject outside the village. I do not know how long it will last, at least a few months, maybe even years. I cannot tell you the details of this mission, it is classified. As for the difficulty, it is an s-class mission, with good reason too."

She mumbled the part about good reason to herself, but she knew that her teammates had heard her, as well as Kakashi, who was currently hiding in a tree watching them.

After several minutes of smacking Naruto and Sasuke over the heads to try to convince them that she was perfectly capable of an S-class mission, Kakashi jumped out of the tree.

"Our little Sakura, all grown up and taking S-class solo mission with confidential details." He cooed.

"Now, from what you said we can already figure out that you are following a Konaha-nin, which generally means that you are gathering information and possibly assassinating them. "

At the word assassinating Sakura burst into laughter.

"Kakashi-Sensei," she gasped, "I wish I could tell you the mission so that you wouldn't sit there staring at like I'm crazy, it just I don't think I'm going to be assassinating the subject anytime soon. I wish I could tell you guys what you just said, but maybe after the mission is over Tsunade will let me tell you."

The male members of team seven looked at the only girl on their team, then looked at each other and shrugged. They had come to the unanimous decision that the female species was crazy.

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Okay, in case you didn't notice this is not like a serious "Sakura discovers Kakashi's past and they become friends through their shared knowledge of the horror of duty and the responsibilty and love of friends"

yeah...........no..... just no

in each chapter they'll be one or two excuses discovered, and at the end the last chapter will be the compiled list of them all. If anyone has any ideas for excuses, please pm me or tell me in a review.

I love to hear what you think

dancingqueensillystring


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